Origins Discussion of the topic dates back to the
American Civil War. A letter to the
War Department dated 5 April 1862 from
New York City resident John Doughty proposed the use of
chlorine shells to drive the
Confederate Army from its positions. Doughty included a detailed drawing of the shell with his letter. It is unknown how the military reacted to Doughty's proposal but the letter was unnoticed in a pile of old official documents until modern times. Another American,
Forrest Shepherd, also proposed a chemical weapon attack against the
Confederates. Shepherd's proposal involved
hydrogen chloride, an attack that would have likely been
non-lethal but may have succeeded in driving enemy soldiers from their positions. Shepherd was a well-known geologist at the time and his proposal was in the form of a letter directly to the
White House.
World War I The earliest predecessors to the United States Army Chemical Corps owe their existence to changes of military technology early in World War I. By 1915, the combatants were using poison gases and chemical irritants on the battlefield. In that year,
the United States War Department first became interested in providing individual soldiers with personal protection against
chemical warfare and they tasked the Medical Department with developing the technology. Nevertheless, troops were neither supplied with
masks nor trained for offensive gas warfare until the U.S. became involved in World War I in 1917. By 1917, the
use of chemical weapons by both the
Allied and
Central Powers had become commonplace along the
Western,
Eastern and
Italian Fronts, occurring daily in some regions. In 1917, Secretary of the Interior
Franklin K. Lane, directed the
Bureau of Mines to assist the Army and Navy in creating a gas war program. Manning recruited chemists from industry, universities, and government to help study mustard-gas poisoning, investigate and mass-produce new toxic chemicals, and develop gas-masks and other treatments. The predecessor to the
1st Gas Regiment was the 30th Engineer Regiment (Gas and Flame). The 30th was activated on 15 August 1917 at Camp American University A 17 October 1917 memorandum from the
Adjutant General to the
Chief of Engineers directed that the Gas Service Section consist of four majors, six captains, 10 first lieutenants and 15 second lieutenants. Additional War Department orders established a Chemical Service Section that included 47 commissioned officers and 95 enlisted personnel. Despite the conventional training, the public perceived the 30th as dealing mainly with "poisonous gas and hell fire". In 1918, the 30th Engineer Regiment (Gas and Flame) was redesignated the
First Gas Regiment and deployed to assist and support Army gas operations, both offensive and defensive.
Formation On 28 June 1918, the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) was officially formed and encompassed the "Gas Service" and "Chemical Service" Sections. Major General
William L. Sibert served as the first director of the CWS on the day it was created, and he resigned in April 1920. In the
interwar period, the Chemical Warfare Service maintained its arsenal despite public pressure and presidential wishes in favor of disarmament. Major General
Amos Fries, the CWS chief from 1920–29, viewed chemical disarmament as a Communist plot. It is my thought that the major functions of the Chemical Warfare Service are those of a "Service" rather than a "Corps." It is desirable to designate as a Corps only those supply branches of the Army which are included in the line of the Army. To have changed the name to the "Chemical Service" would have been more in keeping with its functions than to designate it as the "Chemical Corps." I have a far more important objection to this change of name. It has been and is the policy of this Government to do everything in its power to outlaw the use of chemicals in warfare. Such use is inhuman and contrary to what modern civilization should stand for. I am doing everything in my power to discourage the use of gases and other chemicals in any war between nations. While, unfortunately, the defensive necessities of the United States call for study of the use of chemicals in warfare, I do not want the Government of the United States to do anything to aggrandize or make permanent any special bureau of the Army or the Navy engaged in these studies. I hope the time will come when the Chemical Warfare Service can be entirely abolished. To dignify this Service by calling it the "Chemical Corps" is, in my judgment, contrary to a sound public policy.
World War II in action at
Utah Beach, 1944 The Chemical Warfare Service deployed and prepared gas weapons for use throughout the world during
World War II. However, these weapons were never used in
combat. The CWS completed a variety of non-chemical warfare related tasks and missions during the war including producing
incendiaries for
flame throwers,
flame tanks and other weapons. Chemical soldiers were also involved in
smoke generation missions.
Chemical mortar battalions used the
4.2-inch chemical mortar to support armor and infantry units. During all parts of the war, use of chemical and biological weapons were extremely limited by both sides. Italy used
mustard gas and
phosgene during the short
Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Germany employed chemical agents such as
Zyklon B against Jews, political prisoners and other victims in extermination camps during the
Holocaust, and Japan employed chemical and biological weapons in China. In 1943 a
Liberty Ship named the
SS John Harvey carrying a secret Chemical Warfare Service cargo of
mustard gas as a precautionary retaliatory measure was sunk in an
air raid in Italy, causing 83 deaths and about 600 hospitalized military victims plus a larger number of civilian casualties. Though the political leadership of the United States remained decidedly against the use of chemical weapons, there were those within the military command structure who advocated the use of such weapons. Following the
Battle of Tarawa, during which the U.S. forces suffered more than 3,400 casualties in three days, CWS chief
Major General William N. Porter pushed superiors to approve the use of poison gas against Japan. "We have an overwhelming advantage in the use of gas. Properly used gas could shorten the war in the Pacific and prevent loss of many American lives," Porter said. Popular support was not completely lacking. Some newspaper editorials supported the use of chemical weapons in the Pacific theater. The
New York Daily News proclaimed in 1943, "We Should Gas Japan", and the
Washington Times Herald wrote in 1944, "We Should Have Used Gas at Tarawa because "You Can Cook 'Em Better with Gas". Where there was support for Chemical Warfare was in
V Amphibious Corps and
X U.S. Army. Colonel George F. Unmacht (US Army) became commander of the Army's Chemical Warfare Service, Pacific Ocean Area in 1943. Along with that he was the Hawaii Territorial Coordinator for Civilian Gas Defense and Joint service Pacific theater chief chemical warfare officer under
Adm. Nimitz. Under his leadership the research, development, and production of
flamethrowing tanks and
napalm took place at
Schofield Barracks. His crews of
Seabees produced more flamethrowing tanks than commercial production in the States. The Army and
Marine Corps felt the tanks saved many American troops on
Iwo Jima and
Okinawa.
Post World War II and Korean War, 1945–53 in Korea, had chemical weapons been used. In 1946, the Chemical Warfare Service was re-designated as the "U.S. Army Chemical Corps", a name the branch still uses. During the Korean War (1950–53) chemical soldiers had to again man the 4.2 inch chemical mortar for smoke and high explosive munitions delivery. within a facility at
Arlington Hall Station,
Virginia. which also housed the
Army Security Agency, the
National Security Agency (NSA) and the
Defense Intelligence Agency's
National Intelligence University. The CCIA accomplished the intelligence function of the
U.S. Army Chemical Corps. Its mission was to support the national intelligence effort with particular emphasis on the military aspects of Chemical, Biological and Radiological (CBR) intelligence information. The chemicals were color-coded based on what compound they contained. The U.S. and its allies officially argued that herbicides and defoliants fell outside the definition of "chemical weapons", since these substances were not designed to
asphyxiate or
poison humans, but to destroy plants which provided cover or concealment to the enemy. The Chemical Corps continued to support U.S. forces through the use of
incendiary weapons, such as
napalm, and
riot control measures, among other missions. As the war progressed into the late 1960s, public sentiment against the Chemical Corps increased because of the Army's continued use of herbicides, criticized in the press as being against the Geneva Protocol; napalm; and riot control agents. , seen here in 1968, was appointed
Army Chief of Staff in 1972. In March 1968, the
Dugway sheep incident was one of several key events which increased the growing public furor against the corps. An open air spraying of
VX was blamed for killing over 4,000 sheep near the US
Dugway Proving Ground. Also in 1969, President
Richard Nixon reaffirmed a no first-use policy on chemical weapons as well as renouncing the use of biological weapons (BW). To formally disestablish the corps, the
U.S. Congress had to approve the move, because it had officially established the Chemical Corps in 1946. Congress chose to table action on the fate of the Chemical Corps, leaving it in limbo for several years.
Post Vietnam, 1975–80 By the mid–1970s the chemical warfare and defense capability of the United States had degraded and by 1978 the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff characterized U.S. ability to conduct operations in a chemical environment as "not prepared."
Secretary of the Army Martin R. Hoffmann rescinded the 1972 recommendations, and in 1976 Army Chief of Staff General
Bernard W. Rogers ordered the resumption of Chemical Corps officer commissioning. However, the
U.S. Army Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Anniston,
Alabama did not reopen until 1980. The possibility of CB attack forced the army to respond with NBC defense crash courses in theater. Though
Saddam Hussein had renounced the use of chemical weapons in 1989, many did not believe he would really honor that during a conflict with the United States and the broader coalition forces. After the war, analysis suggested the chemical defense capabilities of U.S. forces were woefully inadequate during and after the conflict.
1990–present As a result of the 1995
sarin gas attack on a Tokyo subway and the growing concern about a terrorist chemical attack, the
U.S. Congress passed laws to implement a program to train civilian, law enforcement, and fire agencies on responding to incidents involving chemical agents. Further,
United States Army Reserve chemical units began fielding equipment and training Soldiers to perform mass casualty decontamination operations. A 1996
United States Government Accountability Office report concluded that U.S. troops remained highly vulnerable to attack from both chemical and biological agents. The report blamed the
U.S. Department of Defense for failure to address shortcoming identified five years earlier during combat in the Persian Gulf War. These shortcomings included inadequate training, a lack of decontamination kits and other equipment, and vaccine shortages. ==Organization and mission==